Frances Liddell

The Digital Lives of Cultural Objects: Blockchain and Data-driven Decision Making in the Cultural Sector.

Overview of PhD

I am working on a collaborative project with the National Museums Liverpool to explore how we can implement blockchain technology to cultivate collective ownership and enchainment between the museum and its audiences.

Blockchain is often only considered as a digital money infrastructure.

This research seeks to demonstrate how the technology can be used beyond this monetary approach and highlight how blockchain can be used to form social value for the museum through collective ownership.

Taking a shared authority approach, we therefore ask can blockchain-enabled objects (also known as cryptocollectibles) be used as a way to highlight the different narratives of a museum object and help to build a stronger sense of community between the museum and the different stakeholders of an object.

The key themes of my research include ownership and psychological ownership, shared and open authority, and authenticity.

Supervisors

• Dr Kostas Arvanitis
• Dr Guyda Armstrong
• Ian Lindsay, National Museums Liverpool

Biography

On completing my BA (Hons) in History of Art and Visual Studies here at The University of Manchester, I continued my studies with the MA in Arts Management, Policy and Practice.

My dissertation explored the concerns and opportunities of an OpenGLAM policy for the arts sector, for which my PhD is a development from this idea.

My interests are in internet culture, digital heritage and blockchain technology.